I picked up this book blind, which is my favorite way to start a story. I hadn’t heard or read anything about it and I’m so glad I got to experience it the way I have. I’m about halfway through at this point and this book is one of those that I just can’t put down. Author Fonda Lee does an amazing job of instantly embroiling the reader into the organized crime world of Kekon, a burgeoning island nation whose primary export (and source of deep conflict) is called Jade. The green rock is no regular stone however. It grants great powers to those with the training and heritage to wield it, but for anybody else, it inflicts a terrible curse known ominously as the Itches. A martial society of clans has arisen around the stone and the power it grants, and the story focuses on the leaders of one such clan decades after the clan’s founders led a war for independence against Shotarian invaders bent on destroying the Kekonese and their Jade wherever they found them. There is so much going on in this story all at once that it’s hard to believe any one person could manage to keep track of it well enough to turn it into such a well-executed story. I’m happy to say it’s one of the best books I’ve read in a while. I’ll certainly be reading the rest of the series too.
Thank you for reading,
Benjamin Hawley
Dangerous Day Job 